


Wake

by Shadaras



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: (Un)death, F/F, POV Second Person, Wingfic, set post-Gideon the Ninth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:00:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25108864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/pseuds/Shadaras
Summary: This has to be a dream, because reality has never been so cruel as this, but if it’s a dream it’s one of those horrific ones that start with you feeling like you’ve just woken up.[written beforeHarrow the Ninthcame out]
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 7
Kudos: 23
Collections: Wingfic Exchange June 2020





	Wake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glyphsinateacup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glyphsinateacup/gifts).



> Harrow comes out in like a month and I know this is nothing like what it's going to be and I don't caaaaare this was too good an image to pass up.

This has to be a dream, because reality has never been so cruel as this, but if it’s a dream it’s one of those horrific ones that start with you feeling like you’ve just woken up.

The thing that woke you was the rattling of bone, which is incredibly rude—these are _your_ rooms, and nobody should be using necromancy here but you—so you wake up with a scowl already on your face, ready to shout at whoever dared invade your personal sphere.

You balk as soon as you sit up, though, because it’s not a skeleton front of you.

It’s fucking _Gideon_ , ripped pants and awful glasses and flame-red hair just as profoundly obnoxious as usual. And that would be one thing, because _hallucinations_ are something you’re at least used to, but this one has to be a dream because you would never, in a thousand unforgivingly immortal years that you don’t actually want, imagine Gideon with _wings_.

They’re gorgeous wings, you’re forced to admit. You can feel each feather if you reach out, because each one is a perfectly crafted bone. The control needed to make a thousand feathers, each one quilled and veined and locked into yet more bone—it’s breathtaking, and you resent that because it often feels like you don’t have enough breath to begin with.

Gideon ruins it all by speaking, because of course she does. “Good morning, sunshine.” She grins, and you realise that her teeth are sharper than they should be. The wings aren’t the only thing that’s changed. “Miss me?”

“What the fuck,” you say, because you’re _articulate_ in the mornings when you’ve stayed up too late the night before practicing the latest necromatic technique you’re supposed to have mastered but can’t focus on for the death of you.

“No greeting?” Gideon sighs dramatically, and her wings shiver a counterpoint to her words. “I’m _distraught_ , O mistress of my undeath.”

You rub your face and wish that you’d never been introduced to _good coffee_ because now it’s all you want. “You’re giving me a headache,” you say, instead of the thing you want to say, which is _What the fuck_ again but louder.

Gideon, predictably, doesn’t care. She never has. “Did you do this?” she asks, prodding at the delicate tracery of her feathers with an ungentle finger. “Because they’re _fucking awesome_. I’m a _literal_ angel of death now.”

“ _Griddle_ ,” you hiss, because you can’t think of anything else to say. “You were never an angel of death, nor are you now.”

She tilts her head and smirks. “Uh, no? Did you forget how I saved your skeletal ass? Angel of death shit right there.”

You stand up abruptly, not caring that you’re barely clad, because either Gideon’s not real and so it doesn’t matter or Gideon _is_ real and being practically naked in front of her is seriously the least of your problems. You can’t keep having this conversation when you’re sitting in a bed, not when Gideon’s fully clothed and you can’t even see her eyes.

You get dressed—nothing formal; just a black dress, bone cuffs, and enough make-up to feel halfway normal—and ignore the running commentary Gideon’s giving about your butt (scrawny, which you’ve known since Gideon learned the word) and your wardrobe (all made up of identical outfits, which just means that Gideon can’t fucking see the difference between different shades of black or different qualities of fabric, which is nothing new) and the fucking wings (the coolest thing Gideon’s ever owned and she hasn’t tried flying yet because there are too many ceilings), and it’s that last one that finally gets you to turn around and acknowledge her again.

“Where did you ever _come from_?” you ask, exasperated and scared and frustratingly soothed by the nattering you would never acknowledge missing in the first place.

Gideon shrugs, and it sets off that clattering again. It’s _pretty_ , and you hate it. “You’ve got a little mausoleum in the rooms over there? It’s sweet of you to keep my body with you, O Mistress of the Night, but did you ever think it was kinda creepy?”

You close your eyes. You didn’t—

There was nothing _to_ save, was the thing.

(There wasn’t any time to pick through bones, either, and make sure that the ones you wanted weren’t just ash.)

“You can’t be here,” you say, and you wanted it to sound confident but you’re pretty sure it’s just coming out scared and you resent her for that, resent that she’s always been able to get under your skin and grab you by the bones.

“Uh. Why not?” Gideon steps closer, wings chiming like bells. You can smell her, sweat and the obnoxious deodorant thing she swears by and the dirt ingrained into her clothes and the new scent of fresh bone bloody and pure above it all. “Is this some ‘A lady’s chamber is sacred and not to be invaded’ shit, because I thought we were past that.”

You shake your head, furious.

“Harrow?” Gideon’s voice is small, afraid, and you don’t know what expression you’re making that she sounds like this, but she’s staring at you with wide eyes and her hands are reaching towards you and you don’t know which you could bear less: Being touched or the illusion breaking in full. “What have I missed?”

You turn away, throat tight, because there’s _so much_ that Gideon’s missed by being _dead_.

Gideon touches your shoulder, and her hand is insufferably warm and solid there. “Let me help you,” she says, serious for the third time in her life. “One body, one life, right?”

“You don’t know _shit_ ,” you shout, spinning and shoving her in the chest.

She stumbles back, and you know it’s got to be the shock more than anything else: You’ve never made Gideon move when she hasn’t wanted to, not without bringing bones into it. “What the fuck have I missed?” she asks again, but it’s starting to sound angry. You soak in that sound, because it’s easier than the confusion. You know where you stand with an angry Gideon. “Harrow, where are we?”

You laugh because the only other option is crying and you aren’t going to shed any (more) tears over Gideon. “The Imperial Stronghold,” you say, and you watch a hundred emotions wash over Gideon’s face at once.

It settles into Gideon’s default, which is a smirk that covers a multitude of sins and Real Feelings. “So,” Gideon drawls, cocking her head to the side. “What kind of food have they got here?”

It’s the most horrendously _Gideon_ thing to say, and you want to strangle her but that won’t help anything. “Come here,” you say instead, drawing on all the years of acting like you were in control even when you weren’t. “Let me take a look at you.” You’d meant to say _your wings_ but the last syllables hadn’t come out, and you don’t want to ruin the effect by repeating yourself unless Gideon disobeys.

She doesn’t, is the terrifying thing. There’s a smile playing on her lips as she steps forward and kneels in front of you, wings folding neatly to her sides. It’s almost _fond_ , and you wish you could see her eyes so that you might get anywhere close to understanding what was going on in her head.

You refuse to think about how you could inhabit her body, once, because you don’t want to know that way. Instead, you run your hands along her wings, feeling the bones as they flutter and shift against each other and dig into Gideon’s body like they were always there. (They weren’t. Even at Gideon’s most aggravatingly dramatic, she’d never dreamt of something like this; Harrow would’ve known if she had.)

Gideon leans into your touch, and you can feel the faintest flutter of that _bond_ swelling up in you to whisper her pleasure. You hadn’t— She could control them, so obviously she could feel them, but you hadn’t expected there to be any _pleasure_ in wings like this.

You also know, with dreadful inevitability, exactly where Gideon’s mind will go now that she’s aware of this. You don’t want to deal with it, so instead you step back and gesture impatiently. “If you’re going to be my cavalier, you need to dress like it.” It’s almost like you’re back in Canaan House, making Gideon put on formal make-up again.

Gideon’s thinking that too, you’re sure, but she restrains herself to a wicked smile that you’ve definitely not seen in your dreams far too often, and she follows you without a word.

If this is a dream, you don’t want to wake up.


End file.
